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EJToday: Top Headlines

EJToday is SEJ's selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day's EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.

"The Obama administration’s plan to pull the plug on an unfinished, $5-billion nuclear plant has brought together some unlikely allies – the South Carolina congressional delegation and Russian President Vladimir Putin."

"DHAKA - On the streets of this South Asian mega-city, jammed solid with rickshaws, honking taxi vans, cars, bicycles, sweating pedestrians and lumbering buses with their paint scraped off in tight squeezes, getting anywhere quickly by road is impossible."

"The National Park Service is celebrating its 100-year anniversary this year. A century ago, the Park Service was created with the mission of protecting and preserving some of the most awe-inspiring places in the country. And at the same time, its mission is to help people who visit those places enjoy them, and that's not always an easy balance."

Climate Feedback provides a venue for climate scientists to evaluate the accuracy of climate news stories".

"The internet represents an extraordinary opportunity for democracy. Never before has it been possible for people from all over the world to access the latest information and collectively seek solutions to the challenges which face our planet, and not a moment too soon: the year 2015 was the hottest in human history, and the Great Barrier Reef is suffering the consequences of warming oceans right now.

"More than 5 billion gallons of oil are transported by boat and barge to the five refineries located in Puget Sound each year. With so much petroleum moving along our coastlines, accidents are, sadly, almost bound to happen. Is Washington ready for the next big one? That’s the question the state Department of Ecology had in mind at the first-of-its-kind “worst-case” oil spill drill off the coast of Anacortes earlier this month."

"It will be 30 years ago Tuesday that Pripyat and the nearby Chernobyl nuclear plant became synonymous with nuclear disaster, that the word Chernobyl came to mean more than just a little village in rural Ukraine, and this place became more than just another spot in the shadowy Soviet Union."

"The United States is on the verge of a national crisis that could mean the end of clean, cheap water. Hundreds of cities and towns are at risk of sudden and severe shortages, either because available water is not safe to drink or because there simply isn’t enough of it."

"After sampling muddy water from the mouth of the Amazon River, oceanographer Patricia Yager steamed in the research ship Atlantis toward the continental shelf, where a Brazilian colleague was chasing a phantom. Yager’s colleague was carrying a 1977 six-page research paper that included a hand-drawn map suggesting this region might mask an extraordinary set of reefs."

"Coal-fired power plants have propelled much of China’s economic rise for decades, helping make the nation the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. Even with economic growth slackening, and other energy sources taking hold, new coal plants have been added. Now Beijing is trying to slow things down."

"For centuries, Lummi tribal fishermen have harvested, dug up clams and fished for salmon in the tidelands and waters of northwest Washington state. Now, the tribe says a proposed $700 million project to build the nation’s largest coal-export terminal threatens that way of life. The tribe last year asked federal regulators to deny permits for project, saying it would interfere with the tribe’s treaty-reserved fishing rights."

"U.S. wildlife officials have decided against setting aside protected habitat for the cave dwellings of an imperiled species of bats, saying that doing so might draw the attention of vandals who would do harm to the lairs of the winged mammals."

"Earlier this month, a U.S. satellite known as F17 — which was primarily used for meteorological measurements — experienced operational failures that compromised the integrity of its data. And while there are similar satellites in orbit that can take over the data collection for now, they’re old enough that scientists are unsure how much longer they’ll last."

"Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer's super PAC launched a $25 million youth voter drive on Monday in seven political battleground states to help elect candidates that champion climate change policies in November's general election."